As India’s second-most drought-prone area, villagers living in Anantapur District are now looking forward to the benefits of another cloud—one created by technology.

An NGO called Social Education and Development Society (SEDS) has built a cloud-based Census Information Management System (CIMS) that has the potential to transform the lives of more than 40,000 members living below the poverty line. SEDS has partnered with Bangalore-based cloud-computing and PaaS platform creator, Wolf Frameworks, to build this SaaS application.

The scale of the projects SEDS works on is huge since the NGO manages the needs of 250 villages. To automate the process of data gathering, SEDS wanted to create a CIMS that would help it collect and analyze information more accurately.

Just 120 hours to design, develop and deploy

SEDS’ IT budget was minimal. The CIMS needed to be scalable and secure to manage the needs of a large population. The fact that SEDS did not have a full-fledged IT or programming team to write code for developing this application was not an obstacle.

The PaaS platform offered by Wolf Frameworks offered SEDS a prebuilt SaaS architecture to rapidly build applications using a point-and-click design environment. The advantage for SEDS—it could build a custom application without writing a single piece of code.

"The effect of the UID on the selfesteem of simple rural women will be tremendous” - Manil Jayasena, CEO, SEDS

More importantly, it took SEDS and Wolf Frameworks just 120 hours to design, develop and deploy India’s first CIMS serving bottom-of-the-pyramid customers. An important feature of the CIMS is that it can be used even from low bandwidth Internet connections prevalent in Anantapur district. The application also allows SEDS to add new program surveys and analytics as required, without any delay.

Power of the cloud

The CIMS allows SEDS to collect and consolidate data into a central repository.
It automates the process of data analysis and presents reports and charts on different metrics at the click of a button.

It also generates a Unique Identification Number (UID) that helps SEDS to locate and track individual data. The application also has the capability to import data records of the last five years.

“The effect of the UID on the selfesteem of simple rural women will be tremendous. Proof of existence as a member of a self-help group opens the doors of the government much faster,” says Manil Jayasena, CEO, SEDS. In addition, members gain speedy access to various government schemes such as pension, housing or NREGS. As an NGO, SEDS will also benefit from the openness of the cloud to disseminate information to donors and the public.

Today, the power of the cloud computing platform can be seen from the fact that the SaaS application stores and manages data of 250 villages, 980 self help groups and auto generates UIDs for more than 40,000 individuals. Since past records are maintained in databases, SEDS can scrutinize and generate analytics based on historical data of the last 15 years. The only infrastructure that SEDS needs is a browser and Internet connection to collectively track the impact and progress of its social development initiatives.

For a region suffering from drought, this cloud is definitely raining benefits.